Arabella was Richard Strauss’ last collaboration with his favourite librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal and is entitled a “lyric comedy”. Whilst there are certainly melodious moments, there are very few laughs in the text or plot. The impoverished Waldner family are long on lineage but perilously short of cash. To remedy the situation, the gambling-addicted pater familias Count Waldner essentially peddles his beautiful daughter Arabella to the highest bidder. His wife, Adelaide, is far from the cleverest countess on the Kärtnerstrasse. She is credulous of clairvoyants and subject to bouts of hysteria. A fondness for free Moët et Chandon, which would normally blow the daily budget, also suggests a character more arriviste than old money.
Problematic parents were something Strauss had experienced first hand. Despite being a highly accomplished horn player, father Franz was an irascible curmudgeon who disparaged almost everything his son wrote and his mother was mentally unstable and spent a considerable time in psychiatric institutions. Adding to the melancholy mix, shortly after having completed the libretto for Arabella, von Hofmannsthal dropped dead of a heart attack at 55, two days after the funeral of his suicide son. Although the peerless librettist had completed the first draft, he died before making the usual collaborative revisions. Strauss refused to change any of the original text, which left problems in the dramaturgy and character development. Arguably, this contributed to the opera’s relatively modest success, especially when compared to Der Rosenkavalier from 22 years before.
Bringing the action forward by about 60 years, Sven-Eric Bechtolf gave Marianne Glittenberg the opportunity to create some louche 1930s costumes but fell into the usual minefield of contextual incongruities. Mandryka makes frequent references to counts and countesses but the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy was abolished in 1919. Similarly, Mandryka assures Arabella that she will be mistress of all his forests and fields with only the “Kaiser und Kaiserin” above her. Duelling with sabres or pistols was hardly the preferred mode of dispute resolution in the 1930s. The hotel scenes worked well enough, but the Coachmen’s Ball in Act 2 looked more like Christopher Isherwood’s Kit Kat Klub in Berlin than an etiquette obsessed 1st District soirée dansante. No matter how low the Waldner’s had fallen, it is highly unlikely they would have been seen in a seedy Kneipe with topless male waiters and androgynous cross-dressers.
Musically things were variable. Arabella’s three suitors were never more than adequate and whilst looking like a flirtatious flapper, Zoryana Kushpler’s Adelaide was vocally underpowered. Maria Nazarova managed the stratospheric tessitura of the Fiakermilli competently enough but with a metallic timbre and not much finesse. Benjamin Bruns sang a vocally impeccable Matteo but was innocuous in characterization. His instant change of hopeless infatuation from Arabella to Zdenka made less sense in practice than it does in the libretto.